Those who have been with us for a while know that traditionally the management/council of Sworn is made of 5 members, and with the departure of Yadard at the end of Mists of Pandaria we have a hole in our hearts (and in the management team).

Heart holes aside, with our growth as a guild in Warlords so far, it is immediately apparent that we need to increase the size of our management structure to be able to keep the ship sailing smoothly through the upcoming progress in Highmaul and Blackrock Foundry.

I am pleased to announce that we have approached Gorshaku, formally know as a variety of other names starting with Gor in times past, to step up to the 5th seat on the council. He has accepted, and I hope everyone helps support the transition by treating him as you would any other member of management

For those unfamiliar with Gor, he previously held the rank of Captain while we were a 25 man guild in the days before Mists of Pandaria, a role assigned for his keen eyes on the raid and dedication to helping everyone improve on progression, as well as putting in the effort to help with supplying vital crafting materials to individuals and the group as a whole.

The management team will remain at 5 members for now, however with Mythic raiding on the horizon we are looking at the potential of expanding the council further to better co-ordinate ourselves with the increased roster. We won't be selecting people for the team who do the most damage, or the most healing, or who deposit the most gold into our pocke- er, I mean the guild bank; rather we'll be keeping eyes out for those who show the commitment to help others in the guild when they can, who are willing to help bring up the members who are behind in these early stages and display the community attitude we hold dear in Sworn.

Note that there will be a period of time for us to adjust to flex raiding in general, as well as heroic progress to clear through before such things may occur, so don't fret too much about it for now!

So finally, please extend your congratulations and support to Gor in his new role!

Edit-bumping this, now that we are getting close to official raid start. New / changed bits are in italics. //Aer

Official raiding will begin on Wednesday 7th January 2015.

This does not mean we will be doing nothing before that! Un-official raids will be organised both to do group pokes at the new MC LFR, as well as some forays into normal/heroic Highmaul with the most prepared raiders. These will be exclusively posted on the in-game calendar, so keep an eye out!

Do not feel pressured to rush your character to be ready for these runs, as they are unofficial no EPGP will be accrued and we will not be monitoring attendance.

For our current trialees, we may use performance from these unofficial raids as reference, however no promotions will occur before the official start (but if you've passed in our eyes by then, you'll start as a full raider!). Again, do not feel pressured to join as a trial, better to wait to give a good impression if in doubt

What we expect for raiding:

Most of this will be fairly obvious, but as a bare minimum we require active raiders to have completed the following before official raiding starts.

Gear Level: Aiming for an item level of 630+ equipped. This is often at the mercy of RNG, however there should be plenty of opportunity for runs. This threshold is assuming mostly heroic blues, with the odd epic from crafting or warforged piece. This is not a hard limit, and it should not prove an obstacle for most people.

Equipment condition: Obviously all gear should be enchanted where appropriate. This means rings, cloaks and necks should have enchants, as well as weapons of course. We will not be demanding the highest possible tier enchants on dungeon blues, but please ensure that they are at least enchanted. Any gem slots on gear should also be filled, again does not need to be the highest tier gems for dungeon blues.

Consumables: For the past two expansions we have had means of provided flasks and food to the raid as whole via either cauldrons or only having 10 raiders. With our expansion in Warlords we will likely be unable to maintain a steady flow of 3 flasks per player per raid as we were originally doing. This is in part due to the removal of the flask bonus from Elixir mastery, and in part to the gateway of sorcerous fire/water required to make the greater flasks.

For the starting raids we will have a supply of greater flasks to distribute, however we will be requesting that raiders either help supply the alchemical catalysts and sorcerous fire/water or sourcing their own flasks. Using the alchemy lab in your garrison provides these materials from work orders, and if you set your herb garden to frostweed (which requires a follower or level 2, can't remember which) you should have no difficulties maintaining a full set of work orders.

We have a large number of alchemists in the guild who can serve your needs, but initially Gorshaku has the greater strength and intellect recipes, whereas I will have the agility and stamina recipes shortly. Eventually we'll both have all of them, but if you're eager to sort your supply now, go ahead!

Feasts will be given as usual, however as the highest tier of feast requires savage blood, any assistance in supply of that would be appreciated (requires Tier 3 barn).

Legendary Quest progress: By the start of official raiding you should be easily able to complete the Chapter I: Call of the Archmage achievement. This will reward you with an ilvl 680 epic ring, and the option to purchase another for your offspec for 800g. This is obviously a big contributor to the item level requirement, and is a natural progression of completing heroics and gathering Apexis crystals

Addons/Extras: Most will already know, but as we've a few trialees that might not be sure, we require the following:-Deadly Boss Mods (or equivalent): No excuses here, it's too useful to ignore. While you also have my dreary voice acting as a boss mod, I can't tell you everything!-EPGP Lootmaster (with ML part disabled): This is our loot system, for which more information can be found here. If you do not have the addon properly installed you won't be able to roll for loot!-Teamspeak 3: Our voice communications for raiding. While it is not required that you speak, it is necessary to listen, as key information such as tactics and in-fight directions are delivered this way. The server information is in the guild information tab in game, or you can ask a member of management for the details if you can't find it Be on time: Groups will be started and announced at 19.00 server time. An on time EPGP bonus will be handed out to those in the group and ready to start at 19.15. This gives us time to consider the composition of the group, most importantly what hybrids (if any) will have to go to their off spec, and put us in a good position to start pulling at 19.30. While we encourage being online at 19.15, we understand this is not always possible. If you are online before raid start (19.30), you will get invited.

That sums up our requirements of raiders for this expansion. Those who have been with us before will see nothing remarkably different, and hopefully it's obvious to our newer members why we ask for this. We won't be standing with a clipboard at the instance entrance to ensure compliance, but if we notice anyone not following the above they will not be invited to subsequent raids until it is fixed!

Group CompositionAs you know, Mythic will be 20 man. Until we are ready to poke our heads in there, we will be doing mainly heroic raids, with normals added in where necessary / practical. These are flexible in size from 10 to 30 raiders. However: While we will try to accomodate people to the best of our ability, especially during progress we're going to have to be somewhat restrictive with changing the group midway through a raid. Example: if we've just spent time refining tactics, it could set us back having to "restart" the explaining of tactics due to new players joining. We will also have to make sure the group balance is right. To reiterate: asking if it is possible to join a raid in progress is fine, but please understand it may not always be possible despite the flexible size of the raid.

As usual, please send any questions to myself or the rest of the management team.

As Warlords is nearly upon us, we've taken the time as management to dust off some cobwebs from our rules and manifesto, ousted the virmin infestation from the EPGP thread, and assessed our roster for promotions and recruitment needs. See what we've done below!

Recruitment:

We are actively seeking more members to join the madhouse for Warlords, but we need your help to spread the word. You are welcome to do so in any way you see fit, but please keep it appropriate, you're representing us all! For those who need a template, the following should suffice:

Sworn is recruiting for Warlords! We are an 8 year old community that focuses on raiding in a relaxed yet focused environment. We are open for recruitment for all roles, so if you want to face challenging content with like-minded people, please visit our forums at http://www.mg-sworn.eu to apply, or contact us in game for more information!

We will continue to use EPGP as our loot system for Warlords. Not much changes from now, however there is a minor tweak in how offspec rolls will work. Currently the loot is awarded to offspecs via random roll (assuming no mainspec interest), however with the requirement to have healers/tanks maintaining hybrid specs to a high level, the management will make decisions on a case by case basis for offspec loot.

As is tradition, we honour dedicated members who have stuck with us for the expansion, and I am please to announce promotions to Veteran for the following members!

Dogoun - Magnataur - Schism - Sunfyre

Please use the extra guild bank privileges appropriately!

6.0.2

With all the gameplay changes being implemented on Wednesday, we will return to some runs of SoO up to the expansion, for heirlooms and to get a grasp on the new Flex raiding style! We will be running Flex Heroic (which is replacing the current normal difficulty level), which will be open to ALL members! The guild events are up, so please let us know interest by signing up on your character of choice (alts will be initially allowed unless we run into difficulties, so those switching mains can get some early experience in!).

We will continue to use EPGP to distribute the loot, but all loot will be awarded by the random roll in EPGP rather than PR at this stage. There will be a complete reset for the next expansion.

A fond farewell

Lastly, to honour the departure of Yadard, I've captured the following image from the final official raid this expansion:All the best with the baby Yads, don't be a stranger!

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